April 24, 2012 by Sarah Swidron
Marketing and selling to Doctors can be one of the most difficult tasks for a salesperson. Doctors are notoriously difficult to reach, and even if your healthcare marketing outreach efforts are successful and you manage to get a few minutes scheduled to see the Doctor, you still have to pitch your product to an incredibly informed, and skeptical, potential customer. Below, you’ll find five tips for marketing and selling to Doctors once you’re face to face with them.
DON’T: Lead by talking about your product—Once you’re in the office, you only have a few short minutes with the Doctor. Don’t lead by bashing him over the head with your product. Instead, lead by getting to know his problems and needs, what the pain points are in his practice, or what hurdles he has to navigate daily. If your product doesn’t provide a solution to his problem, then leading with all that product info is wasting his very valuable time – and yours.
DO: Know about the clinical problem your product is designed to address—The Doctor has let you know what her pain point is or what problem she needs solved. Now you need to be able to talk about how your product addresses that problem and how it will make things easier for the Doctor. If you’re in pharmaceuticals, you need to be able to intelligently discuss the disease states your product addresses. If you’re selling software or a device, you need to be able to communicate the benefits to her practice, whether in cost savings or increased efficiency.
DON’T: Proclaim yourself to be an expert on the Doctor’s field or specialty—If there is one thing a Doctor is sure of, it’s that he knows more than you about his field or specialty. Don’t take the sales call as an opportunity to demonstrate your knowledge about oncology or pediatrics. Be a resource presenting some new information, but don’t claim to be an expert.
DO: Be a product expert—There shouldn’t be a question a Doctor asks about your product that you can’t field on the spot, off the top of your head. Anticipate what questions a Doctor might ask about your product and then have the answers ready. If you can’t tell the Doctor which plans will cover your product and the co-pay associated with it, she is not going to have time to wait for you to you look it up.
DO: Be able to explain clinical literature—In addition to being able to answer questions about your product, you’ll also be expected to be able to discuss the clinical studies associated with your product. Doctors are a skeptical bunch, especially when presented with data offered by sales people. Be able to relate the clinical study information you present to a patient problem, and be able to show how the data you present relates to solving that problem.
March 21, 2012 by Sarah Swidron
Healthcare marketers take note: Nurses are engaging with digital media in increasing numbers and in a variety of ways — primarily for educational purposes. According to new research recently released by UBM Medica, 70% of Nurses who took part in their survey regularly go online to seek out the latest information on developing research and treatment in order to gain insight into the latest options for patients.
Furthermore, these Nurses are averaging about 4.5 hours per week accessing information via mobile devices. They also favor Apple products as their mobile devices of choice, with 48% of respondents owning or planning to own an iPhone and 45% owning or planning to own an iPad. To read the entire report, download it here.
Firms engaging in marketing to Nurses specifically will leverage these insights into Nurse usage behavior to create products that speak directly to their needs. Savvy pharmaceutical and healthcare device marketers are already creating a number of mobile offerings to cater to the growing desire for healthcare information delivered via mobile device — from apps to mobile versions of websites and beyond.
As this research reveals, Nurses’ greatest use of digital media is for educational purposes. Consequently, healthcare marketing organizations hoping to influence purchase decisions among this segment would be wise to create streamlined educational offerings via their websites and apps.
Some of the most successful medical apps that have been created are medical reference apps sponsored by Big Pharma. While most of these apps create a favorable impression of the company who created them, they’re not specifically designed to sell a product. Rather, they’re created for educational purposes, making them attractive resources for Nurses on the go.
Firms hoping to recreate these successes with Nurses will undoubtedly create digital media offerings catered specifically to the Nurse’s usage pattern. As they go online via mobile devices to seek the latest treatment information, healthcare marketers would be wise to create comprehensive online resources that give the most relevant and timely information about whatever field they specialize in. By providing unbiased digital resources, marketers create a favorable impression of their company, thereby creating a likelihood that other, more sales-based communications will be seen and consumed by nurses on the go.
As increasing numbers of Nurses and Nurse Practitioners access healthcare information online, it’s imperative that any marketer hoping to be successful in influencing purchase decisions among them in the coming years create streamlined and engaging online content designed to educate first, and sell second. Those late to the party or who spend too much time touting the greatness of their products are bound to lose among this info-centric group.
